Lot 1622 Dα

This parchment with a finely painted still life in ink, watercolour, and gouache is a fourth variation on three small copper panels by Jan Brueghel the Elder which Klaus Ertz lists in his catalogue raisonné (Ertz, op. cit., p. 1254-1259). The artist gave one as a gift to Cardinal Federico Borromeo in 1605, and this is now housed in the Pinacoteca Ambrosiana in Milan (7.2 x 10.2 cm). The second, which Klaus Ertz dates to 1605, now belongs to the Piet & Nellie de Boer Foundation in Amsterdam (8 x 11.5 cm). The third version, also painted on copper, is slightly larger and differs from the other works in that it includes a diagonally placed tulip (13.6 x 16.6 cm).
Jan van Kessel the Elder and Balthasar van der Ast also painted compositions similar to this one. This effective motif is characterised by a scattered arrangement of objects on a pale ground. The motifs used here, including the two rosebuds, can all be traced to a book of engravings by Joris (Jacob) Hoefnagel entitled “Archetypa studiaque patris Georgii Hoefnagelii” published in 1592.
As yet none of the attributions suggested for this work have been entirely convincing. Jan Brueghel the Elder rarely painted on parchment, but Jan van Kessel and Hoefnagel did.